Racing Hearts || Lando Norris

2 - Charasmatic Casanova

When Lando Norris, the other McLaren driver, found out that he was moving up to be the number one driver for McLaren this year he was extremely excited as he has always been second driver to his former teammates Carlos Sainz and Daniel Riccardo. This felt like a perfect opportunity for Lando as he was feeling extremely focused this season as he plans to win his first Grand Prix and ultimately become World Champion. However, when Lando found out his teammate was a girl and a rookie he was disappointed as he feels like this will hinder his chances of success as he will be fighting at the front of the grid and Sophie will be fighting at the back therefore she will hinder the teams success and his chances of making it up the ranks.

Lando also hates the idea of McLaren signing the first girl to F1 as already they have been receiving mixed reviews and bad press because of this and Lando needs it to be a good year for McLaren and instead all of the press are talking about Sophie rather than the fact that Lando has a really good chance of winning this season. Lando hates that all of the fans are focused on Sophie and not on himself as he always strives to have everyone's support.

Lando was at home with his best friend Max Fetwell when Zak Brown, McLaren CEO, called him and told him the news about his new team mate. Lando immediately searched her up on social media and followed her instagram as Sophie followed him back. Max and Lando scrolled through Sophie's hundreds of instagram posts as they judged her based on her looks. Lando decided to message Sophie congratulating her on signing with McLaren but that is the only communication the pair have had so far.

Lando and Max spoke about how beautiful Sophie was and Lando said that he wouldn't be surprised if Sophie slept with half of the grid before the end of the season as all of the drivers are going to be all over her because of her beauty. The pair continued scrolling and gossiping about every single one of her photos until Max came up with a bet for Lando. "Mate, I will pay you £1000 if you get Sophie to sleep with you before the summer break." Max said as Lando looked at him with a grin. Lando was an extremely competitive person who would never back down from a bet so he agreed. Lando now knew that he was going to have to charm Sophie to get close to her and ultimately get her to sleep with him so now his game had begun. Every single girl Lando has ever met has thrown herself at him so he knew that it wouldn't be that difficult but he was going to have to put his hate for her aside for one night.

A few days later Sophie was round George's house as she was telling him about Lando messaging her congratulating her however George warned Sophie that his 2019 F1 rookie friend is extremely competitive and selfish when it comes to racing so Sophie should be cautious about him as well as warning Sophie that Lando is famously known as being a play boy so Sophie needs to stay clear of him and not let herself get wrapped up in his charm as George doesn't want his little sister to be with an F1 driver as he knows how hard F1 public relationships are because of his relationship with Carmen Montero Mundt. George knows that Lando can mean trouble and he is extremely aware that his little sister needs to stay clear of all trouble on and off the track this year to make sure she still has her F1 seat next year.

Despite her brother's opinions on Lando, Sophie didn't have any pre perceptions on Lando as she wanted to meet him first and decide for herself what she thinks about him. The next day Sophie and Lando attended the McLaren car launch at the McLaren HQ in Woking, England as they had a day full of media interviews around their car and the new season. Sophie was nervous as this is her first official media day as an F1 driver however she was still excited to get started and clear up any rumors about her announcement as the first female F1 driver.

When Sophie arrived at the McLaren HQ she was introduced to Lando by Zak Brown and immediately there was an unspoken tension and rivalry between the pair as they both formally introduced themselves. There was a lot of paparazzi and press who were all focused solely on the pair as they took photos of their every moves which made things extremely awkward as they both didn't know what to say to each other as they slowly realized that they would never get on as friends as George's rumors about Lando proved themselves to be true. They really are rivals.

After the car launch Lando and Sophie were dragged into what seemed like hundreds of interviews with everyone asking the same questions about how Sophie feels joining F1 and her plans for the upcoming season. In a joint interview Lando was asked "what is it like having a female teammate this year?" In which he responded "well let's see if she proves herself enough to keep her seat in F1 by the end of the season." Sophie looked at Lando extremely annoyed at his comment yet she knew she couldn't react as the media were filming her reaction.

Although it is known that in F1 a team mate is a driver's main competition as they are the person that they can closely compare themselves too as they are the only other driver in the same car as them, Sophie didn't think that Lando's first impression was good enough to make her want to spend the next year traveling around the world with him as she thought teammates can also be friends but clearly she would not have that relationship with Lando.

After all of the media and interviews were done and everyone started heading home for the day Sophie grabbed Lando as he was gathering his things to leave and confronted him about his rude comments about her to the press. Sophie told him that she thought out of everyone Lando should be the driver defending her as they are going to have to work together for the next year and he shouldn't be contributing to the hate she and the team are receiving yet he didn't care. "Well I know all of the McLaren media coverage is going to be about the fact they signed a girl and I don't want that to cover up the media talking about how well I'm going to do this year winning my first Grand Prix and ultimately winning the drivers championship so if I can continue to drag your name through the mud then that might contribute to you leaving the team and the press being about me again."

Sophie gets that you have to be confident in your abilities in this sport to make it as one of the greatest but Lando was just outright rude about her. He was so cocky and she knew that she would never get along with someone like that. So it was settled Sophie is going to ignore her awful teammate as he isn't worth the drama.